Burundi journos, activists bemoan mounting harassment

Bujumbura - As tensions mount in Burundi ahead of presidential elections, journalists and activists say they are paying an increasingly heavy price as standard bearers for free speech.

Civil rights in the small Great Lakes nation, they say, are on the decline - sacrificed at the altar of President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial ambition to defy a two-term limit and stay in power for another five years.

There are allegations of widespread harassment and threats of violence, and even talk of a hit-list containing the names of opposition figures, civil society activists and journalists to be eliminated before parliamentary polls in May and the presidential election in June.